


Washington Women

by NovaStars42



Series: The Kids Aren't Alright [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adventure, Damara smokes weed, Diamonds Droog the step father, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Exploration, Friendship, Ghost Hunting, Ghosts, HappyStuck, Humanstuck, Paranormal, Paranormal Investigators, Recreational Drug Use, Satanic altar, country club, ghosts at the country club, its 1 am what do you want from me, mostly only a friendship fic, past relationship, the Megidos both speak Japanese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovaStars42/pseuds/NovaStars42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia ropes her older sister in to taking her ghost hunting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Washington Women

**Author's Note:**

> This fic now has its own playlist! its in the notes  
> Song:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiuQIAkHgZE&index=6&list=PLwBvGRZ4qTdnLZHpBumYJM2m92t14U8x6

My computer screen glowed in the darkness of my bedroom. I had the lights off, but enough light flooded under the shade to shed light on the book in my lap. I'd been seated on my bed since I’d got up this morning. I’d eaten a granola bar and plopped down with four new books my mom had brought me home and I didn’t intend to leave. I had my laptop out, listening to a paranormal webcast. My phone binged every once and a while with a text message.

I was having an awesome Wednesday, as far as Wednesdays went.

It was just after three, and I’d just started when my door opened abruptly. My older sister stood in the doorway, flooding my room with sunlight.

“ _ Are you a ghost? It’s so dark in here _ ,” Damara spoke in Japanese.

“What do you want?” I huffed in English.

“Do me a favor?” she asked, but it sounded more like a command. Smirking, she pulled a twenty out of her bra and held it out to me.

“Go over to Kurloz Makara’s house, I already texted him what I wanted.”

I made a disgusted face at her. “I’m not going to get your weed.”

“Please? Come on, for your big sister! You just have to walk across the street with it,” she urged.

I didn’t reply, only glared at her with disdain, holding up my new book like it was evidence. No.

“You won’t get in trouble, I promise. Hey, you can keep the leftover cash too.” She was just trying to butter me up. I huffed.

“Why can’t you go get it yourself?” I petitioned.

“Because Rufioh Nitram is over to Horuss Zahhak’s and I’m not going anywhere they can see me.”

A smirk played across my lips as hers fell.

“Okay, sure,” I agreed, “But you gotta drive me, Tavros and Sollux to Major Hill.”

“Major Hill? Why the fuck would you-Okay,” she grinned, sort of sickly, and then in Japanese she said; “ _ Sure _ .”

“I’ll be right back.”

I slung on some nicer clothes than the pajamas I’d been wearing and slipped on a pair of sandals.

Kurloz Makara was home, or at least his car was in the driveway as I walked over. I knocked on his front door. Nobody came, so I knocked again. Moments later, it swung open and all six foot two of Kurloz stood in the purple painted frame. He towered over me by at least a eight inches.

He cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t speak.

“I’m here for Damara?” I asked, looking up at him.

He smiled, his expression brightening.

“Alright,” he replied, his words a little slurred. He waved me in to his house and motioned to shut the door behind me. He disappeared down a stairway that I assumed went to his basement as I stood awkwardly near the door. When he came back, he had a clear plastic bag of weed in one hand and a fist full of ones in the other.

“Twelve,” he spoke, and I handed him the twenty. I pocketed my cash and Damara’s weed and left.

In the eight minutes I’d been inside the Makara house, a miniature football team had assembled in the Zahhak’s front yard. There was Rufio, sure enough, playing on the same team as his boyfriend. On the opposing side was Horuss’s brother, Equius, and Nepeta Leijon. Equius could probably take them both by himself, the kid was huge.

I let myself back into my own home. I threw Damara her bag as I stalked back into the darkness of my room.

I picked my phone up off of my bed, and immediately I called my step dad. Calling my mom at work was out of the question, but my step dad always answered. Diamonds Droog was a super cool guy.

“ ‘Ello? Who the hell's this?” My step father answered in his thick Brooklyn accent.

“Hi dad!” I chirped.

“Aradia! How you doin’ sweety?” He was smiling, I could hear it.

“Great dad! Hey, I just wanted to call and ask if Damara could take my friends and I out? They asked their parents and everything.”

He made a noise like he was deep in thought and I heard some papers shuffling around on his end. “Sure, but it’s a weeknight. Can’t be stayin’ up all night waiten’ for you girls.”

“It’s summer!” I reminded him. Something shuffled around again on his end.

“Alright, alright. You got your house keys?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Pepper spray?”

“Yup.”

“Atta girl!” He said, content with my answer. “Tell your sister I said no funny business.”

“Bye dad,” I grinned, ending the call. I opened up my text messages and made a group message.

<<To: Sollux, Tavros Message: Guys, I got us a ride! It’s on tonight. Time stamp: 3:45>>

<< From: Tavros CC: Sollux Message: uHH, ARADIA, DO WE HAVE TO GO TONIGHT Timestamp: 3:45>>

<<From: Tavros CC: Sollux Message: Sorry, caps lock. Timestamp: 3:46>>

<<To: Tavros, Sollux Message: You don’t have to go if you don’t want to Timestamp: 3:46>>

<<From: Tavros CC: Sollux Message: It’s not that.. Timestamp: 3:46>>

<<From: Sollux CC: Tavros Message: He’s just being a baby, AA. He wants 2 go. Time stamp: 3:46>>

<<From: Tavros CC: Sollux Message: I’m not being a baby. Not really. I don’t think. Timestamp:3:47>>

<<From: Sollux CC: Tavros Message: Yeah, yeah whatever. Quit pissing and moaning, that’s all you ever do. Timestamp:3:47>>

<<To: Tavros, Sollux Message: okay, quit griping. 6 pm! Timestamp: 3:48>>

<<From: Sollux CC: Tavros Message: Whatever Timestamp: 3:48>>

<<From: Tavros CC: Sollux Message: Okay Timestamp:3:49>>

I locked my phone and huffed. Sollux was in one of his moods and Tavros was a fraidy-cat, per usual. This was gonna be an uphill fight with Damara too. Even if she had agreed, she’d hassle me the entire time.

“Damara!” I called through the house, “We’re leaving at six!”

She didn’t respond, but I could hear her lighter click.

Sighing, I thought I might as well get my stuff around. I got back up off my bed and strode to my closet where I pulled out backpack and a plastic storage bin of equipment.

My paranormal investigation kit consisted of six flashlights, a first aid kit, and my holy grail, an EMF meter. I’d gotten it for Christmas last year. I’d only used it four times, and three of them had been in my own basement. No ghosts there, unfortunately.

I set to packing my bag, and then I resumed my archeology studies until five.

Sollux graced my doorstep around ten minutes to. Rufioh Nitram’s truck slid into our driveway at six. He’d gone home and brought Tavros and his wheel chair back with him.

“Hi, Aradia, hi, Sollux,” Tavros grinned. He raised a hand to wave at us as his brother pushed him up our inclined driveway.

Sollux looked sour, his hands shoved in his pockets. He didn’t reply.

“Hey,” I grinned back.

Tavros locked his wheels and twisted around to look at his brother, “Thanks, Rufioh.”

“No problem,” he smiled, and then looked up to Sollux and I, greeting us both.

“Say, Doll, where’s your sister? Just got a question for her,” he continued.

“Right here,” Damara spoke for me, smiling as she stepped out of the front door. “Hi, Rufioh.”

My sister walked up beside me, clasped me on the shoulder and pulled me close to her. Why I don’t know. We made it a point not to touch each other.

She’d changed her clothes, from jeans to a too short skirt. She’d also sprayed perfume to try to cover up the smell of weed in her hair.

“Where are you all headed?” Rufioh asked, like he wasn’t sure if he should leave Tavros.

“Howdy folks!”

The collection of people in my driveway groaned collectively, everybody except for Damara. Cronus Ampora strode up my driveway like he owned it. With his leather jacket on and his hair slicked back, he looked like he was born in the wrong century.

“The fifties called, they want their wig back,” Sollux shot.

“Cool your jets, Captor. I’m coming with you guys,” he smirked, “Ain’t that a bite? For you anyway.”

“Damara!” I exclaimed, looking up at her, horrified. She invited him of all people?

“ _ What _ ?” She asked in Japanese.

“You know what!” I shot back.

“ _ What? I don’t understand. I don’t speak English, _ ” she said, like she was genuinely confused. She pulled this on dad sometimes because he didn’t speak or understand the language. I groaned.

“ _ Damara, I speak Japanese too! _ ” I retorted, unhappy. I didn’t want him to come. My sister just laughed a little and brushed me off.

“Hi, uh, Cronus,” Rufioh grinned awkwardly, trying to be civil.

“Hey, Chief,” Cronus returned, “hope you don’t mind. I’m escorting the lady and the kiddies tonight.”

It was pretty clear Damara was just using Cronus to make Rufioh jealous. Everybody could see that. Even Rufioh.

“Why would I mind?” Rufioh asked. Damara’s face fell. Cronus didn’t reply.

“Be safe, okay?” The older Nitram brother requested, and then got back in his truck.

We all piled in to Damara’s car, and Rufioh backed out, letting us do the same.

Damara let Cronus sit in the front seat, my seat, so my friends and I sat in the back. The car was filthy, as usual. Fast food bags littered the floor with papers left over from before graduation. It smelled like weed, Big Macs and Cronus’s cologne, which was new. It was not an improvement.

The entire, cramped ride was awkward and headache inducing.

Major Hill was a country club that had been built in the sixties and abandoned in the nineties. The lawn was overgrown. The pool had long since been drained, either by cracks or evaporation. It had a grand ball room, and most of the equipment was still there, if it hadn’t been stolen already. It’d been sitting empty for nearly twenty years, so long anyone had given up trying to sell the property. No fence had been put up though, so our party of five coasted up the driveway.

Sollux bailed out of the car first, and together, we helped Tavros into his wheelchair. Damara stood with Cronus, leaning on the car and watching.

“What exactly did you want to come here for?” Damara asked, cocking an eyebrows as I pulled my bag out of the trunk.

“We’re going ghost hunting, duh,” I deadpanned, handing Tavros and Sollux each two flashlights.

“In there? Pft!” She laughed, “you guys aren’t going in there. It’ll fall down on your heads!”

“It will not,” I scoffed, shooting her a dissatisfied glare.

“What do you think is even in there?” My sister demanded.

“You know why this place shut down, don’t you?” I asked dryly, putting a hand on my hip. “The owner was murdered here. Strange things started happening here right after.”

“Only you would know that,” my sister muttered, narrowing her eyes. Then, in Japanese she spat; “ _ you're fucking crazy. _ ”

“ _ Thank you, _ ” I replied, smiling, “ _ have fun sitting in the dark outside a haunted house. _ ”

“I’m not scared,” she insisted. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line. It was getting dark. I was calling her bluff.

“I know,” I chirped, “see you later.”

Then I turned around and went for the front door, Sollux and Tavros following me. I was walking slow, waiting for Tavros, but also waiting for Damara. My party of three had just gotten inside the door when I heard the click of Damara’s shoes following us.

“Come on, Cronus,” she muttered sourly, “we gotta watch the kids.”

“Whatever,” he dismissed. He followed her, placing an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

“We usually split up to be more effective,” I instructed, as team leader, “Just as planned. Tavros is taking the ballroom and the employee break room. Sollux is taking the exercise room and the kitchen, and I’m going to the pool room and the golf shed.”

“What about us?” Damara huffed, crossing her arms.

I shrugged, “We meet back here at ten.”

And then the three of us ghost hunters parted ways. It was just my luck the teenagers decided to follow me. I rolled my eyes as I flipped on my flashlight, lighting the hallway that was labeled with a faded pool sign.

“ _ So what’s this about? Why him? _ ” I asked, stepping around a fallen ceiling tile.

“ _ What of it? _ ” Damara shot back, “ _ why not him? _ ”

I shrugged again.

“What are you guys yammering about?” Cronus asked from the back of the pack.

“Don’t worry about it,” Damara waved him off, but then continued in Japanese. “ _ Rufio deserves to see I’ve moved on. He has. Cronus is lonely, I am lonely. I'm doing this shit for all of us. _ ”

“I definitely heard my name that time,” Cronus smirked. “No need to fight over me.”

Damara glared daggers at him.

It seemed to me that no matter what my sister said, she deeply care about her ex-boyfriend. I still didn’t know if she was telling me the truth or not about the whole Cronus thing.

The pool room was gray and drab. At one point, the walls of the room might have been blue, but they’d long since faded. The cement in the pool was cracked, both fault and hairline. The paint chipped off of it like it was going out of fashion. The ceiling was glass, the whole thing, though one side was covered in thick vines. The sky was dark now, the sun had gone down.

What attracted my attention was on the far side of the room.

The entirety of the far wall was covered in graffiti. Blues, purples, and yellows decorated the wood paneling. In the dead center, in red, was a large circle with a star in the middle, pointing down. That was a pentagram if I’d ever seen one.

Under it was a ram’s skull, pale white with wide, twisting horns. Dried, rotten flowers shoved into its eye holes.

Before my sister could protest I dashed up to it.

I whipped my EMF out of my bag and turned it on. I was so excited my fingers missed the button. I knew I was grinning and my fingers felt like they were vibrating. A real live satanic altar! This was the most pleasant surprise I’d ever been so lucky to happen upon.

“Aradia!” My sister exclaimed, “I don’t think you should-”

“Ain’t she gonna get like cursed or something?” Cronus cut her off.

“Shut up!” She retorted and crossed the room too.

“What is that?” Damara asked, her eyes on the meter.

“An EMF. It measures fluctuations in electromagnetic fields,” I replied. I waved it over the wall, around and behind me, slowly making my way to the skull.

“What?” My sister scoffed, “it measures ghosts?”

“No, it measures the disturbances they cause.”

Suddenly it went off in my hand, a shrill scream omitting from the device. I’d froze over the skull, my eyes wide.

“What’s it doing?” Cronus shouted over the EMF. Damara covered her ears.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” My words tripped on themselves on their way out of my mouth as I tore my phone out of my pocket and flipped the EMF off. “I’m gonna make contact!”

“Aradia?” Damara sounded afraid now, but I didn’t have time for her right now.

“Shhhh!” I hushed, and then flipped the voice recorder app on my phone.

It was silent in the room, and dark except for what little my flashlight lit.

This place was eerie. My skin felt like a million pins pricked under it. I drew in a deep, steady breath.

“Is there anybody here with us?” I asked aloud.

The room was quiet.

“What’s your name?” I tried again.

Nothing.

“If you have something to say, you can use my energy,” I assured the mute room, “did you die here? Is something preventing you from moving on?”

Still nothing.

I flipped on the EMF again and waved it around the skull. It didn’t make any noise and the gauge in the center stated pretty stable. Sighing, I shut it off again and pulled my phone back out.

“Aradia, did you like, catch it?” Damara quizzed, rubbing her arms like she was cold. Her skin was rolling with goose bumps. I thought maybe Cronus had swallowed his cigarette.

“No, nothing like that,” I sighed again, “it’s gone, whatever it was. I’ve got the playback though.”

“Play it,” Cronus urged.

We both looked at him surprised. He shrugged and asked me again to play it.

I hit the button on my phone.

“Is there anybody here with us?” My voice sprung back at me.

The audio was silent until my voice came over it again.

“What’s your name?”

The audio was silent again.

“If you have something to say, you can use my energy. Did you die here? Is something preventing you from moving on?”

I kept listening, because it was a good policy to keep going until it ran out to prevent missing anything. I watched, five seconds became four, four became three, three became-

“Yes.”

It was my turn to get goose bumps. I shivered as the track stopped.

“D-did it just?” Damara shook. I nodded.

“Let’s get out of here,” she pushed.

“No way! I want to-”

But I didn’t get to finish my sentence. A scream split though the air, louder than my EMF could ever hope to be.

“Sollux!”

I shoved my phone into my pants pocket and sprinted out of the room. Cronus and my sister were right behind me as we cleared the hallway and the front lobby.

“Sollux?” I called to the empty room.

“Here,” he groaned, knocking on the wood door from a nearby closed closet. Quickly, I opened the door to find him crumpled on the floor.

“Sollux! What happened?” I demanded. He groaned again and got up off of the floor, dusting himself off.

“I wath leaving the kitchen when that asshole thoved me in the closet and sthut the door!” He shouted, jabbing his finger in to Cronus’s chest.

“Hey! Watch it, Captor!” Cronus argued back, “I was with the girls the whole time!”

“You lier! You and your flippy hair have been sthanding in the kitchen door frame all night!”

“Sollux, he’s been with us all night,” I put my hand on his shoulder and pulled him my way, away from Cronus. His face fell.

“What?”

“G-guys,” Tavros cut in, wheeling his chair out from another hallway. His face was pale.

“I, I, uh, don’t think we’re alone here.”

“It’s probably just somebody punking us,” Cronus tried to laugh it off, “there’s no way it’s-”

Damara called it.

The ceiling caved in down the hallway, where Tavros had just come from. It creaked loudly before it came crashing down in a dusty cloud of dirt and drywall. Tavros wheeled further away from it in a hurry.

All five of us stared at it for a moment, jaws dropped and eyes wide.

“I think it’s time to go,” my sister said hurriedly.

“Yup, time to go,” I agreed.

And like a bunch of sissies we left Major hill in a great big hurry. Cronus was the first out the door. Damara had her keys in her hand and the car unlocked before she even cleared the threshold. Sollux lifted Tavros out of his chair without help, and I took the hint to put it in the trunk with my bag.

My sister hit the gas before my door was even shut.

None of us looked back.

It was eleven thirty when we rolled back into the cul-de-sac. We’d stayed longer than we should've at Major Hill. That was evident because Mituna Captor was standing in my driveway when we arrived. He looked especially sour as we all got out of the car.

“It’s ab-about time you show-showed up you li-little bastard,” Mituna snarled, glaring at his brother though his mop of hair.

“Shove it, MT,” Sollux spit, “I got a migraine.”

“You-You’ve always got a mi-mmm, a headache. I've been wha-waiting for you for a-an hour.”

“Better waiting on him than your motor skills,” Cronus spat, smirking and popping the collar on his leather jacket.

Mituna snarled, and twitched, hard. I thought they were going to get in a knock down drag out fight right there in my driveway until the door on the Ampora’s house opened.

“Hey, Cro!” My next door neighbor, Eridan, shouted from his porch, “dad says to get your ass in the house.”

“Shut up, Eridan,” Cronus growled.

“Dad says you're gettin’ grounded.”

It was Mituna’s turn to smirk. Sollux snickered.

“Eridan!” His father shouted, “get back in here! Quit yellin’ over the whole god damn neighborhood!”

Dualscar Ampora appeared in the doorway of his house, yanked his younger son back in by the collar. He pointed a finger at his oldest son and yanked it back, his thumb jutted out behind him. Cronus slouched, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked home across the lawn.

Mituna took Sollux home, or Sollux took Mituna home. With the way Mituna stumbled constantly it was hard to tell. Either way, they slung insults at each other the whole walk.

Tavros said goodbye and wheeled himself over to the Zahhak’s house. Rufioh’s truck was still parked in the driveway, so I figured they must have waited for him.

“That was really fun, Damara,” I told her, now we were alone, “Thanks.”

She laughed a little. “ _ You thought getting the shit scared out of us was fun? _ ”

“You know, I think I agree,” she grinned.

I grinned back up at her. The fireflies were out in our neighborhood, and it was mostly quiet now.

“Are you gonna stay up all night?” She asked.

“Probably,” I answered.

She rolled her eyes in sort of a playful way. “Wake me up in a couple hours. I’m gonna prank the shit out of the fish bitch. Her graduation party is tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

We went inside after that. Our step-dad had waited up for us.

**Author's Note:**

> So Damara!I didn’t make her all depressed over Rufioh, because in openbound she wasn’t. They have a sort of respect I guess? Shes actively trying to move on I think, but she also wasn’t above pranking him (stealing his lusus?).  
> She’s also all kinds of bat shit crazy and I wasn’t fucking with that. I will in her next chapter. The crazy sexual shit drives me up the wall. Some scouring says that it wasn’t the game or Rufioh/Horuss/Meenah that drove her nuts, she was just sort of going nuts anyway? Whatever. 
> 
> Aradia! My favorite little creep! People usually characterize her “ghost/aradiabot” side, but after I saw how happy she was godtier, I couldn’t do that to her. Godtier Aradia smiles a lot! She’s a caretaker (maid) for the afterlife and she likes her job. She’s also still super creepy. She wants to see the universe fall apart, she used to like to dig up dead things, she uses a ouija for a fetch modus for gods sakes.  
> She was also the one who withheld the truth (some people say manipulated) to get Sollux to code Sgrub. I didn’t think she was above abusing favors to get what she wants. 
> 
> She used to be dead Sollux used to hear the voices of the dead, so why not ghost hunters? I added Tavros because Team Charge reasons. I threw Cronus in here as an afterthought. At first i tried to brush him off, but Cronus doesn’t brush off easily.


End file.
